Warning: This story is dark, as in double dark with extra dark
and a side of dark. There are references to rape and child abuse,
though neither is depicted. There is also murder, manipulation,
and a whole lotta chess.

Feedback: zipplic@gmail.com. If you care to
drop me a line, I will respond in your choice of sonnet or
mime.

I've been around, I'll have you know. In the course of my
unconventional life, I've been to Prague and Berlin, Moscow and
Rome, Madrid and Amsterdam and any number of places in between.
The thing is, it all looks more or less the same when you're inside
a box.

So I've never paid much attention to changes in scenery. What
matters more to me are the smells and the sounds: fresh herbs or
cabbage, mutton hash or roasted chicken, harpsichords or flutes,
the silence of a country house or the clatter of a city street.

Here's what I noticed as the Rajah was being wheeled through the
manor halls, to the Countess's parlour: squeaking and groaning.
Every time someone took a step, the floorboards squealed as if
they'd trodden on a rat. Then, too, the box kept jolting, so often
and so hard that I had to wedge myself in a corner to keep from
collecting bruises. That meant that the floors were uneven, the
wooden planks having swollen in the wet and then shrunk in the heat
over and over and over.

Question: why hadn't the Countess bothered to fix her damn
floors? She was rich enough, God knew, so either she couldn't be
bothered or she didn't want workmen tramping around. Either way, I
was beginning to get a mental picture of the woman. Peevish, I
thought, and bad-tempered. Probably went around whacking puppies
with a stick.

My aunt has a passionate interest in oddities, the
woman Eleanor had said. I wondered what kind of oddities she
liked. Extra-large sticks so that she could whack many puppies at
once? Or maybe she was one of those peculiar and disturbing women
who liked to stuff all of her dead cats and keep them on a shelf
under glass.

The Rajah rolled down an incline (not quite a ramp; the floor
was askew) and went abruptly over a bump (Christ only knew what
that was; a dead puppy, perchance). Then the box came to a halt,
and there were murmuring voices around. The scents of cigar smoke
and fresh coffee, port wine and powdered wigs, now mingled with the
familiar smells of the Rajah's interior (dust, mainly, and candle
soot and wood varnish). So I knew we'd arrived.

Within the space of five heartbearts, the murmurs quieted. That
would be the impact of the Rajah as it made its appearance in the
parlour: the wooden man, splendid in his robes and jewelled turban,
all polish and gold inlay in the candlelight. It was a scene I
knew so well that I could almost feel the heat of the candles on my
own skin, along with the weight of the stares. Hundreds on
hundreds of times, I'd been in this position: performing and hiding
all at once, concealed and on display. You had to hand it to Rush.
Not many people could hide their toys and show them off at the
same instant.

"Ladies," I heard Rush's voice announce, in the slow sonorous
tone that she used when she was showboating. At the same time, she
laid her hand on the cabinet. How did I know this? I just did. I
felt it there, as if she'd touched my own back and started
to rub gently, to and fro, to and fro.

"Ladies," Rush said again. "Without further ado or
introduction, I present the automaton itself. Over the course of
this week, you will have the opportunity to satisfy yourselves that
the Rajah is no mere novelty or plaything. It is nothing less than
an invention which heralds the coming of a new and braver world."
(Pause for effect.) "The Rajah is, quite simply, the first
intelligent machine. I say 'the first'- there will be many more.
In the ages to come, automata such as this will not merely spin
thread and grind grain. No, they will fight our wars, slave in
factories, come at our bidding, go at our direction- in fact, they
will serve our every whim. And this miraculous invention- " (she
was getting very excited now) "- this marvel of science, this step
on the journey to man's mastery of the cosmos-"

An impatient voice broke in. "I thought you said no further
ado!"

"Ah." Rush's mouth shut with a click, and then she coughed
twice. More than almost anything, Rush hated being interrupted,
and I knew that she was swallowing her frustration and annoyance.
"Yes, of course. Forgive me, Countess."

So this was the Countess. I listened with interest to the new
voice. Rush had been right: it did bear an uncanny resemblance to
the braying of donkey. A very unhappy donkey which someone had
been repeatedly kicking in the nuts.

"You travelling types are all the same," the Countess brayed
complainingly. "Always thinking that you've found the Holy Grail.
I could put up with that, if you didn't go on and
on and on about it. Why can't you just point at
the thing, announce 'Me made shiny!' and leave it at that?"

There was a long pause, and then Rush let out a dutiful,
unconvincing laugh. "Most amusing, Countess."

"Oh, don't humour me," the Countess brayed in answer. "There's
nothing that annoys me more than people who humour me. Except
buttered parsnips."

"Buttered parsnips?"

"I loathe buttered parsnips. Well, let's have a look."

Now we were into familiar territory. I knew what was about to
happen. The Countess would wander around the Rajah a few times,
staring at it shrewdly, and then would beckon someone towards her,
and confide her own crackpot theory on the secret behind the
machine. ("Squirrels. The thing's filled with trained
squirrels.") Rush wouldn't comment; she'd just go through her
normal routine of opening the doors in the Rajah's cabinet to
expose the clockwork. The Countess would see her theory debunked
(no squirrels in the cabinet, not a one) and would sulk for half an
hour before recovering enough to start the game.

But I was wrong. Instead, a nearby chair groaned in agony as a
heavy body lowered itself down onto the seat. "Come on then," the
Countess commanded. "Wind the thing up and let's begin."

"Ah- yes." Rush tried to cover her confusion, but she was
clearly thrown off her stride. "I generally begin with a brief
exhibition of the Rajah's interior machinery. Shall I-"

"Stars above, woman. Do you ever, for three consecutive
seconds, tire of the sound of your own voice? No, forget the
clockwork. I've seen a deal of clockwork in my life and I've never
found it precisely riveting. Let's just get started. Eleanor, my
sherry. And a cigar."

Eleanor hadn't said a word yet, which struck me as odd, since
Rush had described her as arrogant and cheeky. I listened,
expecting slippered feet to whisper across the floor when Eleanor
went for the sherry. Instead I heard firm, booted, no-nonsense
footsteps. My mental picture of her began to come into focus.
Pointed chin, I thought. Bristling eyebrows. Spectacles.

"Virtually always," Rush answered. She was setting out the
chessmen on the cabinet top; I could tell from the way that the
magnets on their coils of wire were stirring above me. She was
doing it very slowly, very deliberately. I knew why. She was
quivering on the brink of total apoplectic fury and if she didn't
stay master of herself, she would throw the whole Rajah across the
room. Or, she would burn things. Many things. Expensive things.
Possibly living things.

"Well, then," the Countess said, sounding amused. "What will
you give me if I win?"

An unconvincing laugh from Rush. "My most hearty
congratulations, ma'am."

"That's all? Then I will look forwards to receiving them.
Eleanor, another sherry for Miss Rushmore. And keep them coming
until she stops glowering. It wouldn't do to have wrinkles develop
on such a pretty face."

* * *

The Rajah almost always played with a handicap: I would start
the game with only one of my rooks, or only five pawns, or,
sometimes, without my queen. It kept things interesting.

The Countess, however, refused to let the Rajah take a handicap.
("Where's the glory in beating up a cripple?" was the way she put
it.) It felt a little strange to have all sixteen chessmen to work
with, but I adjusted quickly.

Over the next ten minutes, I divided my attention between the
chess game and Rush. The Countess seemed to be a competent player;
she was developing her side well. Still, she paused for a long
while between each move, to demand that Eleanor bring her more
sherry, adjust her chair, and fan her brow. While all that was
going on, I had time to listen to Rush silently seethe.

She was truly, truly angry now, so much so that I was vaguely
surprised that her entire head hadn't exploded in one riotous blaze
of powder and flame. I could hear it in the way that her
sharp-toed boots were going click-click-click against the floor. I
fancied I could hear her teeth, too, grinding away.

The Countess had gotten under Rush's skin so effortlessly...and
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't amused. In an ill-advised,
against-my-better-judgment kind of way. It was all very well to
snicker when I was still safely inside the box, but if Rush hadn't
cooled down by the time we got back to our rooms, then things would
stop being funny in a very big hurry.

At the very least, Rush would regale me with the "If there was
any justice in the world" speech. That one was an evergreen. I
heard it for the first time the day after Rush won me, and by the
time I was thirteen, I knew it by heart. If there was any justice
in the world, then the wealth and power wouldn't be concentrated in
the hands of stupid, backwards aristocrats who thought that
calculus was just another word for a bladder stone. It
would be the forward thinkers like Rush, the scientists and
geniuses, who would be in charge of everything, and everyone else
would have to write a competitive examination at age eight to
determine whether they were intelligent enough to go on living.
Morons, clergymen, and fat women would be rounded up and killed by
firing squad. And Rush would rule England, or, at the very least,
Wales.

"Cat got your tongue?" the Countess brayed presently.
"Honestly, Rushmore. I thought a travelling wit like you would
have more to say."

"I beg your pardon, Ma'am," Rush answered. "It is difficult for
me to shine in the presence of so many luminaries."

"Careful, Rushmore. I may blush. Eleanor, another cigar.
Quick before I faint. I'm not used to all these compliments. Oh,
and by the by...Check."

Check? Already? What? I had been playing more or
less mechanically- a bad habit, but easy to get into when your
opponents aren't good enough to stretch you. Now, shocked back to
concentration, I stared down at my chessboard in the flickering
candlelight, and sucked in a long breath. So evil. So
brilliant. I'd never seen the sneak attack coming. Now
my queen was down and my king was under threat from a overzealous
bishop and a pawn which, until that moment, had been playing all
innocent. I swallowed hard, my mouth bone-dry from excitement. If
I could have screamed with joy, or fallen to my knees and sung
hallelujah, then I would have. It had been so long...

Utter silence from Rush. Not even an intake of breath or a
scuffing of her shoe on the floor. I knew well what that silence
meant, but for the sake of my own sanity, I couldn't think about
it. Instead, I forced myself to pretend that Rush had stepped out
of the room to get a bite to eat and catch up on the latest in
saucy French novels. Then I put the thought of her out of my mind,
exactly the same way that you would put a cat out the door into the
back yard, and I immersed myself in the game.

My old strategy was useless now, ripped to rags by the whirlwind
violence of the Countess's attack, so I made up a new one on the
fly. It was based, roughly, on one of the more famous reported
games of Jacques Mouret (the
not-quite-as-great-or-as-immortal-as-Philidor-but-almost), with a
few crucial fiendish twists. It was the kind of game I would have
played seven years before, back when I still had to innovate in
order to beat my opponents, and it made me feel as if a whole
hemisphere of my brain was coming back to life.

We played. It's so easy to say that, two words, but it's also
easy to say "The bomb exploded," or "The armies met," or "God made
the world," or "My legs fell off." We played- but oh,
how we played. Not since that day in Paris, when
Lecrivain and Sasias beat me to a joyfully quivering pulp, had I
faced such a master. The Countess was merciless and endlessly
inventive. Again and again, she found the weak points in my
formation and pounced on them. She still paused for a maddeningly
long time between each move, but that allowed me some space to
recover from the excitement. Some of her more dazzling strokes
left me so worked up that I had to hunch over and do some deep
breathing before I could focus on anything else.

I'm not sure how long it all lasted. While the game was still
going on, it seemed an eternity. Afterwards, it was more like the
entire evening had been some delicious fruit which I'd devoured in
a few giant bites.

The Countess had just manoeuvred me into check for the fourth
time, and I was frantically scheming how I was going to make her
regret it, when the dream ended. There had been a sort of
delirious ringing in my ears which blocked the sound of the outside
world, but a particularly loud bray from the Countess snapped me
back to reality: "Miss Rushmore, would you kindly stop making that
infernal noise?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, my lady."

Rush was trying to sound innocent. As you can imagine, perhaps,
she wasn't doing a very good job.

"You don't know what I mean," the Countess repeated. "I'm
beginning to think that you're daft as well as pretentious. That
noise. That."

That noise. Somehow I'd managed to block it out- I suppose I'd
wanted to- but now it was impossible to ignore. It was a clicking
sound, like a metallic cricket, and it came from a small device
which Rush kept in her pocket during performances. For
emergencies.

"That noise," the Countess said again. In her
exasperation, she slapped the cabinet so hard that my ears rang.
"The noise you're making now. Are you going to cease and desist or
do I have to spill a glass of sherry down your bodice?"

A strangled noise from Rush, and then, when she mastered
herself: "Your ladyship will, of course, do as she pleases."

"My ladyship certainly will, so, if you please, belt
up. Otherwise I'll do something that I'll regret tomorrow morning.
Actually, I won't regret it, but you will. More sherry, Eleanor.
No, open a new bottle."

My excitement and delight had drained away, replaced by a much
more familiar feeling: a cold, sickly dread. How long had Rush
been giving me the emergency signal? Five minutes at least, I
judged- probably ever since the Countess had captured my one
remaining bishop. For one wild moment, I wondered whether I could
just keep playing. It had been years since Rush last used the
signal; perhaps I could tell her that I'd forgotten what it meant?
No. No good. I was in enough trouble already. I took a last
longing look at the chessboard, then forced myself to grab the
emergency knob and pull.

The reaction was immediate. Clockwork gears on either side of
me shuddered and groaned, so forcefully that the cabinet quivered.
Outside the cabinet, the Rajah's hand would be flailing
ineffectually back and forth. The Rajah's head, too, would be
shaking from side to side, like a man in an apoplectic fit. As the
final touch, I slid open a vent. This would allow some smoke from
my candle to leak out through the Rajah's mouth, making it look as
though the whole machine might blow up at any moment.

There was a gasp or two from the spectators, but Rush's voice
rose above it: "My lady, for your own safety, I must ask you to
move away."

"That's bosh," the Countess said, but she was already backing
up. I recognized her clumping feet. "What's the matter with the
thing?"

"I'm afraid that you may have damaged it when you struck it, my
lady. The mechanism is exceedingly delicate-"

"Is it damaged or is it sulking? I was just about to ride to
glorious victory; is it being a poor loser? Fix it, Rushmore!"

"My deepest apologies, my lady," Rush said, for what seemed like
the twentieth time since we had arrived at the manor. "But it will
take me time in order to find and rectify the fault. If you will
excuse me, I will return the Rajah to my rooms and begin repairs
immediately. I will undertake to have the Rajah in perfect working
order for tomorrow night- failing any unforeseen crisis, of
course."

"Oh, hang it," the Countess said, disgruntled, and though I
can't swear to this, I think that she might have followed it up
with a belch. "You idealists are maddening. You promise
perfection and then your inventions explode. It's enough to make
one lose faith in science for good."

* * *

The post-mortem, back in our rooms, went about as well as could
be expected.

When Von Hausen popped open the lid of the cabinet, I was
already making my excuses, as fast as I could. "I underestimated
her. I underestimated her and she caught me off guard. It was a
mistake. It won't happen again. It'll never happen
again."

Rush wasn't listening. Back towards me, she was staring at the
window as if she could see through the thick drapes, right to
something fascinating on the other side. Her voice was very cold.
"Get her out of there, Caroline."

Von Hausen's big hands plunged down, grabbed me by the
shirt-collar and one wrist, and hauled me from the cabinet. There
was a grey smear around her mouth, her clothes reeked of chemicals,
and her eyes wouldn't focus. She must have been drinking the shoe
polish again. She gripped me by the shoulders as though she was
presenting me for Rush's inspection and critique. But Rush still
didn't turn around. Her hands were clasped loosely behind her, and
one finger tapped idly.

The silence stretched so long that I almost began to break down
there and then, which I suppose was the point. How could she be so
quiet, when I could see that every nerve in her body was stretched
to breaking point? It was as if I was watching a bullet, somehow
arrested at the very second it was fired.

Von Hausen assumed that she knew what was coming next. She
reached for the leather belt that was draped across a chair,
waiting.

Rush's head moved slightly. "No," she said, in an even tone.
"Not yet."

When Rush said Not yet, it always meant Definitely
later. I tried to talk, explain, protest, but it seemed that
some inconsiderate person had glued my tongue to the roof of my
mouth.

"You were going to lose," Rush said. Almost as if it didn't
matter. As if her interest was purely casual.

"No," I managed to whisper. "Not necessarily."

"Were you going to win?"

"I don't know. I might have."

"Do you think that's good enough?"

Finally, something I could answer. "No."

"No," she repeated, and swept around to face me at last. She
was angry, but she didn't look like it, not particularly. Of
course, at times like this, she never did. There was a sadness
about her, a look almost of pleading. She wanted me to know how
terribly I had disappointed her.

"You know the rules, Kit," she said. "After twelve years of
this, you'd be an idiot not to know the rules."

Technically, there was no rule against losing. But I guess that
there was something in the nature of a religious commandment.

"So this is very perplexing." Rush sunk into a chair, as if
suddenly exhausted. "Every time you lose..."

"...it hasn't happened for years..."

"You're interrupting me? Honestly?" Her hands tightened around
the armrests, as though she was in pain. "What's gotten into you
tonight? Every time you lose, Kit, you promise it's the
last time. So why do you keep doing it? Are you trying to get my
attention? Well, now you have my attention."

"I didn't do it on purpose," I said desperately. "I didn't. I
swear, I didn't. The Countess is just...she's very, very
good."

Mistake, big mistake. Von Hausen caught sight of the fire
blooming in Rush's eyes, and dragged me up until my toes were
barely touching the floor.

"The Countess?" Rush asked, her face all venom. "That braying,
Austrian ass? That pompous, self-satisfied bitch? If there was any
justice in the world, then women like her would either be sent to
labour in the coal mines or handed over to the state to be used for
scientific research. You're asking me to believe that she was a
match for the Rajah?"

"Yes! No! I don't know what you want me to say. Tell me what
you want me to say!"

"I want you to say- and I want you to mean it, Kit-
that all of this will be fixed by tomorrow. Whatever happened
tonight, whatever fit of pique or lapse of concentration or
whatever it was, by tomorrow's game, it's over. Because
the Rajah has two more games at least to play against that bitch,
and I can't pull an emergency stop again. If you don't do better
than you did tonight, then you will lose to that Austrian whore,
and I swear to the living God, I will put you out of your
misery myself before I let that happen. Caroline, the belt."

Von Hausen came alive at once, and the sequence of movements was
so smooth and familiar that she might have been an automaton
herself, running on clockwork. She took up the belt, dragged me to
the sofa, and forced me down over the arm.

"Wait, wait, wait!" I called before my face was pushed
into the cushions. "Please, Rush, don't- please, just-"

"Just what?" Rush's voice came closer. "I'll tell you what,
Kit, I'll leave the choice up to you. You can either take the
beating- or we shall go outside, you and I, and take a turn around
the garden."

I didn't really have to answer; Rush already knew what I would
choose. I switched tactics. "At least let me take off my shirt
first."

Rush must have nodded, because the pressure of Von Hausen's
hands went away. I straightened, pulled down the straps of my
suspenders, and went through the business of unbuttoning. It was
stupid of me to have made the request, in a way, because this whole
business would be worse if my back was bare. But I only owned two
shirts and there would probably be some bleeding.

My bloodstone pendant thumped against my chest as I folded the
shirt carefully and set it on the floor. "All right," I said, when
I couldn't put it off any longer. "I'm ready."

Once again, Von Hausen forced me down over the arm of the sofa.
I found a loose fold of fabric with my teeth, bit hard, and braced
myself. Then came the whistling of the belt through the air, and
damn it all, she was using the end with the buckle.

I'll gloss over the next ten minutes, if I may. Von Hausen laid
it on hard that night. I don't know whether I can hold Rush
responsible for that. She didn't give a word of instruction or
encouragement. But, as always, she counted the strokes.

* * *

I did get to hear the rest of the
if-there-was-any-justice-in-the-world speech, but I heard it
through a kind of haze, lying on the sofa in the messy aftermath
while Rush stroked my hair.

I stared at the ceiling while she talked on and on and on, about
the glories of science and the stupidity of the aristocracy, about
competitive examinations and firing squads. And of course, about
the way that children would be brought up in the brave new world of
the future. How they would be removed from their inept and
ignorant parents and given into the care of those who knew
something about morals and discipline.

"I have to be strict with you, pet," Rush said at that point,
breaking from the script. "Look what happens to women who haven't
known enough discipline in their lives. Look at Caroline."

That was metaphorical, since Von Hausen wasn't in the room.
Rush had given her a full bottle of schnapps after the beating
(payment for services rendered, I suppose) and she'd disappeared to
the stables to swill it in private.

"Or," Rush continued, and her voice had gone very soft and
confiding, "remember your mother."

Not fair. I closed my eyes, preparing to listen as little as
possible. My mother used to describe herself as a "dancer," but
I'd known the truth of it since I was six, even though she rarely
brought men home. I suppose she worked mainly out of alleyways. I
used to know when she'd had a bad day because she would come home
with bruises, and I knew when she'd had a good day because she came
home with rolls and butter. Otherwise we lived mainly on soup. I
saw no reason for anyone in the world to criticize what my mother
did, especially since she wasn't married to my father and he didn't
come by very often. (When he did, there was cake.) But Rush felt
differently about these things.

Rush had never met my mother, but she knew everything about her
that I knew. I wasn't permitted to have secrets any more than I
was permitted to have sweets.

Rush went on: "Quite honestly, Kit, it chills me to think of
what might have become of you if I hadn't taken you away from
there. I suppose that your father would have lost you to someone
else in a game of cards. Considering the way he drank and
gambled, it was just a matter of time. Or maybe he would have
taken a more direct route- dropped you off at the neighbouring
whorehouse in return for a week's worth of drinking money. That
happens, you know, Kit. There are markets in Budapest and Warsaw
where you can buy a girl for half the price of a pig or a sheep.
It's much, much more common than people believe. You could have
ended up in some rich man's harem, leashed to his bed with a golden
chain, with your ankle tendons severed so you couldn't run."

There was a pause where I was expected to say something
appropriately grateful. I didn't. Von Hausen would be passed out
by now, so I wasn't going to be whipped again that evening no
matter what I said. Rush never handled the belt herself.

"So you see," Rush concluded, "I have to be strict with you.
Fortunately, I got you young, but you still rotted away ten years
of your life in a Paris slum, and it left seeds of corruption
somewhere deep. Even now- even now, I'm still trying to
purge the last of it away. It's difficult for you, I know, but
we'll get there in the end. We'll get there in the end. I promise
you that, pet."

Her hand sought and found the chain around my neck, the one from
which the bloodstone dangled, and she very gently began to twist
it.

I'm not much of a one for prayer- not anymore. There was a time
after Rush won me when I said my prayers to her, because she did
have the power to improve my circumstances and she seemed to be the
only one listening anyway. I think that Rush was amused by that
more than anything else, but her strict Anglican upbringing kicked
in and she made me stop. Except on special occasions.

Since giving up on prayer, I'd also given up on the idea of
divine intervention, which was a good idea, as it turned out, since
divine intervention never came. I mean real divine intervention,
the kind with lightning and glowing clouds and things. I did,
however, retain my belief in luck. I got a lucky break every so
often.

I suppose you could consider it a lucky break that the screaming
started at that moment.

Unlike the scream that we'd heard the day before, from outside
the manor, it started all at once, full-throated. Yesterday's
scream had been recognizably a woman's voice- this one was so raw
and piercing that you couldn't even tell. If it had been coming
from out of doors, I would have thought it was a wolf keening or a
pig being slaughtered. But it was coming from above us. Not
immediately overhead- more distant than that, probably a couple of
floors up. The attic?

Rush's hands stilled. I took another risk and looked up at her
face. She was frowning at the ceiling.

"Lunatic relative or baboon?" I asked, trying for a casual tone.
"Which do you think is more likely?"

"Knowing the Countess, her relatives probably are
baboons, lunatic or otherwise. Still, it's very strange..."

Her voice petered out, as she realized that she'd come close to
admitting that there was something she didn't know. "Sleep, Kit,"
she said brusquely. "It's past your bedtime."

I reached for the blanket. I didn't need it- my skin felt
burning hot- but I wanted to cover myself, was grateful for the
excuse. "Von Hausen said it was a ghost."

"She would say that. Germans. Thick as custard, the
lot of them." She fussed with the blanket, tucking me in. "I did
my best with Caroline, but somewhere along the line things went
wrong. You take that as an example, pet. You don't want to go
down that road."

She stood and turned down the gas. Between the feverish feel of
my skin, the lightness of my head, and the unaccountable screaming
somewhere above, the whole scene had taken on a sort of dreamlike
quality. It seemed to me then that there was nothing in the
universe but Rush turning down the gaslight, and it was as if I'd
been watching her for years.

* * *

I suppose I got a little bit delirious during the night, because
my dreams were filled with screaming baboons and Rush on the throne
of Wales and firing squads shooting the Countess with buttered
rolls. My skin got hotter and hotter and I longed for ice- then
the temperature plummeted and I was shivering so hard that the
couch shook beneath me. I pulled myself up and shambled round and
round and round the room. I was looking for Towser, who had made
himself scarce during all the fighting earlier but who couldn't be
too far away. I found him, in the end, under the table. He huffed
in an offended way when I woke him, but after I explained the
situation, he scooted over a little to make room for me. Once
huddled against his warm smelly bulk, I stopped shivering and sunk
back into restless dreams.

Mostly, I dreamt about my father- the way he looked on that last
day, right before everything changed. Right before Rush. He was
drunk that day, of course. I hadn't known that at the time, had
thought that his red eyes were from crying and that he was slurring
his speech because he was trying to be funny. (He did try to be
funny every so often when I was with him. He wasn't very good at
it, but I appreciated the effort.)

Strange that I was ever so innocent when it came to drunkenness.
My years with Von Hausen had made me something of an expert when
it came to drunk.

In my dreams, the same scene played out over and over. Not even
a scene- more of a fragment. I stood in the smoky, crowded hall,
staring at my father's bent back, in its shabby black coat, as he
slumped over the gaming table. My right hand was in Rush's left
hand, her taloned grip biting my skin. And I was wishing, wishing
with all the power that a ten-year-old has to wish for anything,
that my father would turn his head and look at me. Somehow I was
certain that if his eyes met mine, everything would be fixed. Rush
would miraculously vanish, my father would take my hand instead,
and I would go home to my own trundle bed, in a room that smelt of
hazelnuts.

But he didn't look at me- and he didn't, and he didn't, and he
didn't. He didn't even lift his head. For what seemed like hours,
he slumped there not looking at me. Then came a gentle
tug on my arm. That was Rush, pulling me away.

I must have relived that scene a hundred times over the course
of the night, and really, it wasn't necessary. I'd gone through it
once in real life and that was more than enough.

I tossed and turned so hard that, in the end, Towser grumbled
complainingly, wriggled out from under my grip, and stalked away.
That was all right, because I was too hot again. The flesh of my
back was tight, inflamed, and burning. I felt that if I licked a
fingertip and touched it to the skin, I'd hear a sizzle. I felt
like I could sing like a kettle on the boil, except of course, it
wouldn't do to wake up Rush.

In my restless sweaty half-sleep, snatches of old songs chased
themselves around and around my head- the kind of thing my mother
used to sing when I was sick, way back when. My favourite was the
one about the shipwrecked cabin boy who was about to be
cannibalized when the Virgin Mary stepped in, with its chorus of
Ohe! Ohe!My mother's voice had been really
terrible and she always used to cough in the middle of a verse. I
could almost hear her coughing now...

Rap! Rap!

I sat abruptly upright and banged my head on the tabletop.
Wincing, rubbing the new lump, I peered through the dimness at the
hearthrug. No Von Hausen, which meant she hadn't come in the night
before, which meant that she was trying to get in now, which meant
she was knocking, which meant that she'd wake up Rush too early,
which meant that Rush would get up angry, which meant that she'd
stay angry the whole day, which meant that today would be
even worse than yesterday and with that I could not cope.
Sandy-eyed, sore and feverish, I scooted out from the table and
shambled over to the door.

I realized on the way that I didn't have the key, but found that
wouldn't be an issue. Rush, probably because of her distraction
the night before, had left her key in the lock and there it was
still, with a threadbare bit of red ribbon dangling from the
head.

RAP! RAP!

"I'm coming, Von Hausen," I growled, wiggling the stiff
key. It didn't want to turn. "Keep it down, you drunken brute.
If you wake Rush now, then you won't get another drop of liquor
before next Candlemas Day."

The lock clicked. I wrenched the door open, just before another
knock could land on it, and prepared to dodge backwards. It was
like Von Hausen to come in swinging, trying to catch me a clip on
the ear or chin before I could blink.

It wasn't Von Hausen behind the door. It wasn't even something
that I could recognize as a person, not right away. I had to see
all the details in turn, working from the ground up: Shiny riding
boots, polished black; a sweeping dark-blue skirt; a plain neat
bodice with a row of blackberry-shaped buttons; a pointed chin;
furrowed eyebrows; a crown of dark hair. All the images tumbled
around my head for a minute like apples in a basket before I could
put them all together. It was a woman, a young woman.

And she was looking at me. She was looking straight at me, and
I wasn't inside a box or under a blanket or hidden in a cloak or
obscured by a pile of cushions.

She had seen me, which meant I'd broken rule number one, which
meant that I was in more trouble than I had been in living memory,
which meant, which meant, which meant...

I tried to yank the door shut but the woman grabbed the handle.
"Is something wrong?"

"Everything's normal," I said automatically.

Her eyes narrowed, then softened, and her shoulders moved in
something like a shrug. "Well, in any case, I don't think we've
been introduced. I am Eleanor Von Kaunitz, the niece of the
Countess. And you are...?"

I am dead, was what I nearly said in response. Instead
I just stood and gaped. Eleanor the Austrian Bitch was staring
right at me.

She didn't seem affronted by my rudeness. She tried another
tack. "I was coming to invite Miss Rushmore to breakfast. We have
it early in the summertime. Would you like some breakfast?"

I did not want some breakfast, not particularly, not that
moment. I wanted time to reverse itself so that I could change the
last five minutes and not commit an act of terrible stupidity by
opening the door. I wanted pain to stop roiling in waves through
my back. I wanted to understand why this strange half-broken house
had so few servants in it and why there was a howling woman
upstairs. I wanted my mother to sing me that song about the cabin
boy and the cannibals in her husky voice, with coughs interrupting
every refrain. I wanted my father to turn around. I wanted my
father to turn around. I wanted my father to turn around from the
gaming table and look me in the face before Rush led me away, Rush
who had won me, Rush who had won me in a game of cards and it was a
fair game so it was no good complaining about it and if she hadn't
done it I would have ended up in some rich man's harem anyway with
my tendons cut.

I wanted all that. I could manage without breakfast for a
while.

Eleanor seemed concerned now. She took a step forwards, as if
to lay a hand on my arm.

That broke my paralysis. It was all up now, but it couldn't be
helped; Rush had given me some firm instructions about what I was
to do if I ever got into a situation like this and I couldn't have
disobeyed her any more than I could have lifted a church and
steeple. Squeezing my eyes shut, I yelled Rush's name.

Then I just stood and waited for Rush to come and kill me. I
hoped that she would make it fast, but I doubted it. I did believe
in luck, but it didn't come to my assistance all that often.